Following the launch of the mobile versions of Curiosity, Rock, Paper, Shotgun has allowed their curiosity to get the best of them, and have inquired about the status of the PC edition of the first-person chiseler, since this was announced as a PC/Mac "experiment." Designer Peter Molyneux explains that the game is just too darned successful, so this may have been another of those cases where his enthusiasm has outstripped reality, as he tells them:

“We would love to do a PC version,” Molyneux told RPS, “but we are currently snowed under by the number of people using the Curiosity experiment (coming up to one million ) in a few days. This is pushing our servers to the limit. We are currently all surviving on less than three hours sleep a night. I guess if we could find a publisher who could take on the work of a PC version we could consider it.”

sir wrote on Nov 10, 2012, 02:51:Molyneux is that rarest of things, the game development equivalent of John Carpenter; A master of his craft in the beginning, but a latter day snake-oil salesman.

Bullshit. Name just about every "master" game developer of the 90's and they've gone on to mediocrity.

Lord British? Hah.

Most of the team at iD? Barely shadows of themselves. And Romero is going to make you his bitch.

Warren Spector? I won't judge Epic Mickey, but he thinks consolization is a fantastic thing and pumped out Deus Ex 2 immediately after getting a lobotomy, which must have occurred shortly after DX1 was released.

We'll see if Chris Roberts swings & misses.

I'd say at *least* half of the "masters of their craft" from 10+ years ago have either left the industry or blow chunks.

And as for this Curiosity thing, it strikes me as a giant web counter with a BUNCH of zeroes on it, and Molyneux crying that when the counter hits a specific, secret number someone gets a prize.

Which is fucking stupid.

Congratulations, you've cited four examples in an industry that employs tens of thousands of development personnel. And from where do you get your approximation of 'half of the "masters of their craft" from 10+ years ago have either left the industry or blow chunks'? I'm guessing it came from the same place as Molyneux' latest game.

Congratulations, you've mastered that rarest of skills, moving the goalposts when you are shown to be wrong.

First you're talking about "masters of their craft", and when I show that it's easy to come up with "masters of their craft" who suck now, you suddenly change that to "individuals who suck among an industry of 10's of thousands".

Which is the shittiest of counter-arguments, because it moves you from "you're wrong" to "you're not even wrong, you're not part of this conversation any more".

As for where I came up with that "at least half" number, well, considering that I could only come up with two names of "masters of the craft" that haven't turned to shit yet (Ken Levine and Gabe Newell, and Gabe is probably arguable) and have been around as long as Molyneux, and all of the others I could think of have succumbed to mediocrity, I figured I must be forgetting a bunch of people and knocked my estimate down from "almost everyone" to "at least half".

I'm not the sporting type so I'll move the goalposts as I see fit as per your precedent (see below), and right now I'm moving them back to my original comment, which was that Molyneux was "A master of his craft in the beginning, but a latter day snake-oil salesman."

For some unfathomable reason, you chose to interpret those words as someone who had "gone on to mediocrity". Did I say 'someone who had gone on to mediocrity?' No, I didn't, you did. You took my words and deliberately twisted them to suit your own ends, or to put it your way, you "moved the goalposts."

Now, I've had a quick look at the web for snake-oil salesman definitions, and not one of them mention someone who has "gone on to mediocrity." What they do mention is someone who seels fraudulent goods, which, I think, is a perfect definition in light of Molyneux' latest offering, but which is hardly fitting when applied to the less stellar games of Lord British, SPector, iD et al's later career projects.

I'm sure you'll mention Daikatana or some such poor game as a counter point, but the point is that those were games that at least had some content, and that required time and effort to develop. Molyneux' latest, on the other hand, is a cynical, quick, grubby money grab, which in my book puts him in a class all of his own, truly the rarest of things.

sir wrote on Nov 10, 2012, 02:51:Molyneux is that rarest of things, the game development equivalent of John Carpenter; A master of his craft in the beginning, but a latter day snake-oil salesman.

Bullshit. Name just about every "master" game developer of the 90's and they've gone on to mediocrity.

Lord British? Hah.

Most of the team at iD? Barely shadows of themselves. And Romero is going to make you his bitch.

Warren Spector? I won't judge Epic Mickey, but he thinks consolization is a fantastic thing and pumped out Deus Ex 2 immediately after getting a lobotomy, which must have occurred shortly after DX1 was released.

We'll see if Chris Roberts swings & misses.

I'd say at *least* half of the "masters of their craft" from 10+ years ago have either left the industry or blow chunks.

And as for this Curiosity thing, it strikes me as a giant web counter with a BUNCH of zeroes on it, and Molyneux crying that when the counter hits a specific, secret number someone gets a prize.

Which is fucking stupid.

Congratulations, you've cited four examples in an industry that employs tens of thousands of development personnel. And from where do you get your approximation of 'half of the "masters of their craft" from 10+ years ago have either left the industry or blow chunks'? I'm guessing it came from the same place as Molyneux' latest game.

Congratulations, you've mastered that rarest of skills, moving the goalposts when you are shown to be wrong.

First you're talking about "masters of their craft", and when I show that it's easy to come up with "masters of their craft" who suck now, you suddenly change that to "individuals who suck among an industry of 10's of thousands".

Which is the shittiest of counter-arguments, because it moves you from "you're wrong" to "you're not even wrong, you're not part of this conversation any more".

As for where I came up with that "at least half" number, well, considering that I could only come up with two names of "masters of the craft" that haven't turned to shit yet (Ken Levine and Gabe Newell, and Gabe is probably arguable) and have been around as long as Molyneux, and all of the others I could think of have succumbed to mediocrity, I figured I must be forgetting a bunch of people and knocked my estimate down from "almost everyone" to "at least half".

sir wrote on Nov 10, 2012, 02:51:Molyneux is that rarest of things, the game development equivalent of John Carpenter; A master of his craft in the beginning, but a latter day snake-oil salesman.

Bullshit. Name just about every "master" game developer of the 90's and they've gone on to mediocrity.

Lord British? Hah.

Most of the team at iD? Barely shadows of themselves. And Romero is going to make you his bitch.

Warren Spector? I won't judge Epic Mickey, but he thinks consolization is a fantastic thing and pumped out Deus Ex 2 immediately after getting a lobotomy, which must have occurred shortly after DX1 was released.

We'll see if Chris Roberts swings & misses.

I'd say at *least* half of the "masters of their craft" from 10+ years ago have either left the industry or blow chunks.

And as for this Curiosity thing, it strikes me as a giant web counter with a BUNCH of zeroes on it, and Molyneux crying that when the counter hits a specific, secret number someone gets a prize.

Which is fucking stupid.

Congratulations, you've cited four examples in an industry that employs tens of thousands of development personnel. And from where do you get your approximation of 'half of the "masters of their craft" from 10+ years ago have either left the industry or blow chunks'? I'm guessing it came from the same place as Molyneux' latest game.

sir wrote on Nov 10, 2012, 02:51:Molyneux is that rarest of things, the game development equivalent of John Carpenter; A master of his craft in the beginning, but a latter day snake-oil salesman.

Bullshit. Name just about every "master" game developer of the 90's and they've gone on to mediocrity.

Lord British? Hah.

Most of the team at iD? Barely shadows of themselves. And Romero is going to make you his bitch.

Warren Spector? I won't judge Epic Mickey, but he thinks consolization is a fantastic thing and pumped out Deus Ex 2 immediately after getting a lobotomy, which must have occurred shortly after DX1 was released.

We'll see if Chris Roberts swings & misses.

I'd say at *least* half of the "masters of their craft" from 10+ years ago have either left the industry or blow chunks.

And as for this Curiosity thing, it strikes me as a giant web counter with a BUNCH of zeroes on it, and Molyneux crying that when the counter hits a specific, secret number someone gets a prize.

I made a new game where you constantly press a button. There will be a DLC you can buy worth the price of a plane ticket. If you're REALLY lucky, you can become the ONE where you get to fly to Peter Molyneux's residence, ring his doorbell, punch him in the head when he answers and tell him to make a real game. The game is called Curiosity Solved.

Cutter wrote on Nov 9, 2012, 23:30:I have an idea for a game titled 'Stairway to Heaven' where people climb flights of stairs. You just keep going up and up and up to see...well you'll just have to keep climbing and see. Oh yes, there are pair of virtual walking shoes available for 50 grand.

make it like Q-Bert where the layers of steps disappear as you ascend/descend revealing a new layer, and I'm sold =)

"What do I want? I don't really know. Most of the time I ignore my quest and walk into the homes of others, riffling through people's shelves... oooh, like those over there!"

I made a game where people play a game that makes a game for others to play, it's called Redundancy. I have been completely swamped with people who want to play it, it is too popular for me to really tell you when the PC version is coming but it will be out as soon as I'm sure there are enough gullible losers AHEM customers to play my experience. I am Peter Molyneux and my head is a hot air balloon.

I have an idea for a game titled 'Stairway to Heaven' where people climb flights of stairs. You just keep going up and up and up to see...well you'll just have to keep climbing and see. Oh yes, there are pair of virtual walking shoes available for 50 grand.

"Lights going out and a kick in the balls. That's entertainment, that's entertainment"

Prez wrote on Nov 9, 2012, 23:13:Someone care to explain to little old clueless me how a million people tapping on a friggin' cube with a virtual chisel keeps them so busy that they can't get more than three hours a sleep a night? I couldn't possibly care any less that this isn't coming to PC; I'm just at a loss over the reason they cited.

Download it on your phone. Now try to log in. You can't. That's whats keeping them up, they're trying to fix the fact that they built a game meant to be played by millions, but nobody can log on.

Someone care to explain to little old clueless me how a million people tapping on a friggin' cube with a virtual chisel keeps them so busy that they can't get more than three hours a sleep a night? I couldn't possibly care any less that this isn't coming to PC; I'm just at a loss over the reason they cited.

“The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated.” - Mahatma Gandhi